


Where You'll Grow Your Last Feathers

by hearts_kun



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Curses, Gen, M/M, Magic, Non-physical Death, Some Fluff, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_kun/pseuds/hearts_kun
Summary: Goro is slowly getting covered in black feathers and seeks calm in a land where animalistic folks are not surprising anyone. Instead, he meets a young wizard who quickly takes a special place in his life.





	Where You'll Grow Your Last Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JadeDraggy2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeDraggy2017/gifts).



> For ShuAke Hell Anniversary Exchange, a gift to Jade. Jade is amazing, read her fics!

The apple is so sour that Goro squeamishly throws it away despite paying a whole silver coin for it. His sharp claws break the apple’s skin and even as it falls, it’s too late: his hand is already covered in sticky apple juice. Goro winces. He’s still not used to his new appearance, and it only keeps changing. First it was just a few feathers here and there, and now what? Elegant claws that keep clinging to everything. Beautiful and ugly at the same time, attracting one’s eye, yet scaring everyone away.

That is why he came in these lands, well known for its sour apple pies, warm sheep milk, and the diversity of local folks. It is one of the very few spaces where Goro doesn’t look out of place. Even if his crow-like appearance is caused by a curse, unlike for all the animalistic inhabitants of this place, he doesn’t look too different from them. Humans, beasts, they are all mixed into one colorful mass here, made of smells, curses, quiet gazes and nods. No one stares, no one points a finger at you. The markets are small, the streets are crowded, the travelers are humble and polite, knowing the rules of passage.

It takes time to get adjusted to.

Goro spends the remains of his savings to pay upfront for a cheap old house on the outskirts of the north-west village. He wants to spend these days in silence. Preferably alone, but he knows he won’t be able to. Something constantly calls for him, makes him walk into places, meet weird people. Under his new black, black feathers, which have grown during the last nine months, he also hides new scars. Scars that this call has brought to him — signs and memories of folks he won’t meet again, but who have influenced his life directly.

Sometimes he tries to move the feathers aside a bit, only to look at these traces of days that seem to be only yesterday, thinks of how many people now might be expecting something from him. How big of a disappointment he must be, denying it to them now.

He doesn’t dwell on it too much though. It’s no use, he’s decided.

*

Another scar appears on him soon enough, and when he least expects it. It’s a scar of a different nature, not the one you can see on skin. It appears on him when he meets a young boy with fuzzy nest of hair on his head, black like Goro’s own feathers. Goro looks at the boy’s smile, looks at his thin but skilled hands of a professional wizard, looks at a lonely sheep chewing on the edge of his clothes, and he knows — this scar is not going to fade soon.

It’s a bit pathetic, this thought.

*

The boy’s name is Akira, and he’s, as Goro guessed right, a wizard. He’s also a shepherd, an owner of his own tiny farm with a few sheep whose milk he sells and in whose fur he sleeps (or so he says).

The air around him seems lighter. Sun seems warmer, and grass seems softer. He smiles a lot: his smiles are wide, thin, and genuine. Goro looks at Akira’s smiles and feels something in his heart move clumsily. It’s not love — not yet, at least — but it’s a warm feeling, one that you never want to let go.

Goro visits Akira and his sheep each morning that they appear on the market, and they slowly learn to talk. Not sheep, of course, but Akira and Goro, a wizard and a crow. Goro feels so much that his feathers become itchy and he starts scratching them, as if it ever helped him to escape his feelings.

Akira seems to see him through. His smiles only grow softer, their talks grow longer. Just a few weeks passes, and Akira tells Goro how to find his farm, tells him all the magic cues leading to a little house in the thick of the pinewood.

“Where do you keep your sheep then?” Goro wonders, and Akira winks to him and doesn’t explain, because he’s a wizard and he keeps his secrets.

Then he disappears from the market for a few days, and Goro decides to cross the meadows and look into the forest — just to make sure his weird wizard friend is alright.

High grasses intertwine with his feathers and cling to his clothes as he walks. He rolls his eyes and hisses, but the grasses just won’t stop caressing the edges of his cloak and his long black feathers showing from under the cloth. It makes him smile bitterly as he walks. The air is warm, and the sun is shining, but the first days of September have come already, and soon the cold winds will come, the rains will pour, and Goro will be more of a bird and less of a human.

He briefly remembers that this morning in his small dirty mirror he saw a glimpse of black slowly covering his eyes. He blinked, and it seemed to be gone, but he knew it wasn’t his vision playing with him.

He is turning into a crow, and by the end of December Goro Akechi might as well be gone from this world, flying away from sanity on a pair of two massive wings that will grow eventually from his hands.

He crosses the meadows and walks into the shadowy pinewood, pine branches closing in above his head, and wild animals talking and sneaking between the bushes. He finds all the magical cues and a narrow invisible pathway leads him to a humble cleaning and a small house at the edge of it. One of the sheep is casually walking around: she raises her cute head to see who came to disturb her day and slowly recognizes Goro. Goro thinks she’s a bit too smart for a simple sheep, but he isn’t surprised.

When Akira immediately shows up at the doorstep without Goro making any noise or letting know he’s arrived, he also isn’t surprised. His own feathers are proof of what magic can do. There’s nothing he can’t simply accept happening anymore.

One thing he has to admit, though, is that Akira’s bright face and enthusiastic behavior makes something in him move again. This is a magic of a different kind. The one Goro isn’t familiar with yet.

“Goro!” Akira says, and it sounds so soft in his mouth that Goro winces and squeezes one eye in a futile attempt to get rid of this softness.

“That’s me. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

Akira blinks briefly and puts a finger on his lips, and Goro can’t stand how cute he looks like that.

“I’ve had a visitor a few days ago,” finally remembers Akira, “and then Annie got sick.”

Goro looks at the smart sheep that has now walked closer to him and is staring at his feathers. Akira scratches the back of his head and nods. Yeah, that’s Annie.

They awkwardly stare at each other for a bit. Akira scratches his head again, “Well, do you wanna come in?”

Goro nods.

“Who was that previous guest of yours?” he asks casually, more to start a conversation and maybe a bit out of curiosity. He doesn’t expect to hear what Akira says as he opens the door and invites Goro in.

“Ah, Masayoshi is something of a friend, I guess? We met at a wizarding convention two years ago. He’s a fun guy, though a bit distant sometimes.”

Goro freezes at the doorstep, one foot in, one foot out. It’s a weird feeling, especially after all these months, but a drop of cold sweat slides down his back almost immediately, and he feels his heart rate go up. Masayoshi… There’s no doubt it’s the very same Masayoshi he is thinking about. He knows his curse is not only making him into a crow. There’s a lot more in there, able to mess with the threads of fate and bring him to places he doesn’t even know he should be in.

Something’s itching in his chest. Akira notices, of course. He’s an attentive young boy. A wizard, moreover.

“Are you okay? Do you know him? Had a fight? I’ve heard he isn’t on terms with anthropomorphic folks, to be honest, that also makes me tensed, but he’s a good guy deep inside, I know, and he’s a very skilled master of his art, whenever he comes I manage to learn so much from him! This time he brought me some magical stones to look through, seems like they didn’t answer to his call, but he says I have different talents, and maybe I’ll make it? It’s actually very exciting! I know you’re not very knowledgeable in magic, but I can show you, it’s really easy, come on…”

Goro breathes out and follows Akira into the depth of his small cozy house with a low ceiling and low-set windows, letting in just the right amount of sunshine. Constant babbling is not the usual temp of Akira’s speech, at least not at the market, but it doesn’t sound annoying or irritating. Instead, he’s radiating contagious splashes of energy, Goro notices, and somehow that seems calming to him.

He then shakes his head, denying knowing Akira’s friend, even though that is a blatant lie. He doesn’t want to open all of his cards yet. Though at this point it’s less of cards, and more of… burdens maybe.

Akira makes sweet herbal tea for both of them, and they talk nonsense until sun slowly starts setting down. Sometimes Goro stares out of the window and forgets about everything except Akira’s voice, and his claws clink at the surface of his cup, making him shiver.

At the end, he excuses himself, and Akira hugs him and calls him a friend, and asks him to come again.

Goro feels weird about it, but particularly weird he feels about being friends with someone who is also friends with Masayoshi Shido.

*

At night Goro traces his face with his claws, risking leaving painful scratches, and stares into darkness. This wizard boy, Akira, lingers at the edge of his mind, but more so does Masayoshi Shido. Goro is sure his curse has led them both here for him to finish what he had started nine months ago. He is also sure Shido is not far from here yet. Goro can still catch up to him, if he wants to.

He stares into the darkness, feels the sharpness of his claws on his skin, clenches a fist. There’s rage somewhere inside him; rage that used to guide him and walk him through decisions like this one. It is now weak, just smoldering, not burning. It lies at the bottom of his self, his… soul, if he has one.

He opens his fist and there are painful scratches bleeding on his bare palm, and there are small drops of blood on his claws. He sneers and shakes it off. He’s not going anywhere. He’s decided already, and he’s making this decision again.

Though, gods know, he hates being tempted.

*

They meet again at the small stream in the woods, running eagerly between the trees. Goro puts his black-feathered legs into it, holding the corners of his old pants above the water. It’s cold, but he doesn’t feel it the way he used to. His mutating body affects his perception of things, too.

Small smooth stones on the bottom feel nice under his bare feet though.

Akira stands behind him quietly, until Goro finally chuckles and says, “I know you’ve been there the whole time.”

Then he comes forward and stands next to Goro, his feet on earth, himself fully clothed. Annie, healthy now, shows her head from behind the bushes with a leaf in her mouth. Akira smiles at her, but his mind is elsewhere, and his eyes are empty.

“Something on your mind?”

Akira keeps staring into nothingness for a few moments, not realizing it’s him being asked. Then shivers slightly.

“Just a thought. I haven’t seen you in the village for a while. Traveling?”

Goro shrugs, “No.” But this doesn’t seem to be a satisfying answer to Akira. “No, I was just… Trying to collect my thoughts all alone, I guess.”

Feathers on his legs rustle against his pants as he steps out of the stream and lets go of their corners. Feathers on his arms rustle against his sleeves too. He thinks it’s a curious sound; he tries not to think of the brief panic it brings him.

October is coming to an end, and there’s a cold, windy November coming, and new feathers are growing on Goro’s neck, itching and hurting. He wonders how it is that Akira doesn’t notice even though they seem to see each other regularly. Regularly, if you omit these last two weeks Goro spent in self-deprecation, trying to amplify his savings by doing some dirty job in the neighborhood fields and to accidentally end his misery in the process.

Gods, he was so terrified. And he is, still.

Akira nods and slowly sits down on the ground, not afraid of getting his clean coat dirty.

Goro shakes his legs, trying to get dry sooner, eyeing his shoes, standing aside from the stream. At first, the hanging silence doesn’t bother him, but then he notices that even Annie isn’t chewing anymore, staring at Akira, frozen and spacing out. Goro bites the inner side of his cheek: he doesn’t know how to deal with this. It’s weird to realize that despite your body mutating and falling apart, and constantly itching, and becoming not you, there’s still someone outside of it who doesn’t know your struggles and is facing their own, which may even be worse now.

He stays quiet for a bit more before asking, “Something happened?”

Akira immediately shakes his head and smiles, but his smile is a little bit empty.

“No, just thinking. Thinking… I was thinking, I usually think better in company, but that’s probably not true for everyone. I wonder if you found what you were looking for during these days, though? I was a bit worried.”

Goro rubs his wrists, trying to find words.

“I… guess?” he guesses. He doesn’t know if he found anything. His refusal is burning his lungs, his eyes flash with black more and more often in the mirror, and the terror of what’s going to happen, of what he’s allowing to happen, it creeps closer and closer to him every night, closing its claws around his neck and choking. He doesn’t know if there are any right answers, he just knows he’s made a decision, and he knows it comes with a price. This thought is lingering in his mind for a while now, it’s nothing new.

Akira seems unsatisfied with that answer, once again.

“I think, maybe, if you think… If it would be more productive thinking for you in a company, like for me, I’d gladly make you one, you know? You know where to find me.”

Goro listens to that and coughs, and his cough sounds more like a crooked caw caw, and it sends a shiver down his spine, but he still smiles. He now realizes he never explained Akira where he lives or where he’s from, and so Akira can’t just come knocking at his door, like Goro can come at Akira’s. He can’t quite turn that feeling into words, but it feels warm and sunny when he realizes it.

“Come to my place,” he offers. “Would be a nice change of scenery.”

For the first time during this exchange Akira’s eyes truly light up, and Goro senses their light crawl under his feather and skin, deeper, to the depth that isn’t reachable for anyone else. He feels proud for making Akira like that.

*

It’s not dawn yet when he hears cups clinking in the background and lazily turns to his other side, and opens one of his blackened eyes. Snow is glistening behind the old dirty window, and only a small shadow of a wizard boy running around the kitchen paints the walls with a thick black pattern as a few candles are burning behind the corner.

Goro closes his eye and turns away. It’s the middle of November, and Akira is trying to make him a surprise breakfast again, and again he is going to pretend like he didn’t wake up too early and ruined the fun, and once again Akira will see through him but won’t say anything. It’s incredible how he tries to walk quieter each time, but still fails again and again. It’s even more incredible how he never loses hope, considering that day by day Goro’s sensitivity grows as he’s becoming more and more of a bird. Sometimes, deep inside, he wishes for Akira to succeed simply because it would mean there’s still something human left in Goro. But he knows it is not so.

Besides, even Akira sees it now, his black eyes and his neck now almost fully covered in feathers. He doesn’t insist on an explanation but Goro understands that at this point such a wizard like Akira would know he’s not simply one of the bird folks.

Long minutes pass, and Akira “wakes him up” with gentle murmuring of a local traditional song. It sounds nothing like the music Goro is used to in his own lands, but it soothes him, and makes opening his eyes easier and his thoughts lighter.

He gets out of bed not bothering to dress himself too much. A thick layer of black feathers in shining in the light of the candles. It starts dawning somewhere far, far away, barely visible from the window angle. Akira smiles happily and brings Goro tea and some baked goods. They’re not warm anymore but Goro can tell they’re fresh from the market. He breathes them in and nearly drools.

Akira nearly drops himself onto the opposite chair. The kitchen is really small and tight, and would it have been a little bit tighter, they’d be touching shoulders. But it’s alright. Goro doesn’t mind being close to Akira or touching his shoulder. Akira doesn’t mind too. Everything feels like their little happy world.

*

The amount of snow in December expectedly rises; temperature drops; Goro starts getting a little cold in the old hut he’s renting. He starts spending more time at Akira’s place, which, no matter the weather, is always pleasantly warm and welcoming. Goro blames everything on magic, as always, and his wizard friend only smiles and keeps it secret.

Feathers are growing on his face already, but for the first time during this hellish year he doesn’t feel that terrified or enraged with it. He accepts them as a new part of himself and sometimes stares at the mirror not with disgust but with curiosity, trying to understad his own new body’s structure.

What still bothers him is his arms, though. They start slowly reforming into wings, both Goro and Akira notice, and while Akira says it should be fine, and whatever it is that’s making him change, it’s not trying to make him dysfunctional, Goro doesn’t really trust him. He feels clumsy and he doesn’t fit into most of his old clothes because of huge growth at his elbows. He learns to accept it too, however.

Sometimes Akira sits him down and holds his hands and looks in his eyes with care.

“Are you sure this should be happening?” he asks seriously as never, and each time Goro nods and says ‘yes’. He’s not a bad liar, besides, it’s his choice, and it’s going just like planned. And yet, each time after that talk Goro is feeling bitter, as if his lies settle down on his tongue.

(He still remembers lying about not knowing Shido, and it eats at him, it makes him guilty. Akira is way more honest than him.)

As soon as Goro so much as thinks of Shido his fate, or maybe his curse, brings the man to his life. Just one quiet morning Akira comes back from the market, and Goro meets him, covering his cold feathers with a warm woolen plaid, and sees him holding a small letter with a coffee stain on its edge.

“It’s from a friend,” Akira says, “from Masayoshi, the one who visited in September. Oh, I brought some honey and dough, so we could bake today! And a mixture for Annie and Donnie, cause…”

Goro nods, Annie and Donnie have been coughing a bit lately, which sounded weird from sheep and, most importantly, made Akira worry a lot.

“Anyway, wanna read it for me? I don’t think he’d write anything confidential or whatever, he just seems like it, but he really is… Oh, well, you’ll meet some time, I think, and you’ll see.”

Goro takes the letter and doesn’t say that he’s met Masayoshi Shido before, and that his blood is boiling a bit, and that he can feel his feathers move slightly when Akira mentions this name.

There, in the letter, with a neat handwriting just a few lines are written. He will be here after the twentieth. Right before Christmas, or maybe for it. He’ll bring some more artefacts and news from the wizarding world. He really misses Akira’s berry tea and his empty head, he adds in a post scriptum.

Goro clenches his teeth and fists. He sees a different man in these lines. A mentor, maybe, an older friend. A little bit of a jerk but just acceptable enough to befriend him and learn from him. He isn’t what Goro knows him for, not at all.

This annoys him. He bites at his own wrist to let out the frustration while Akira is gone and can’t stop him. A feather’s base breaks under his teeth. He feels disturbed and anxious, and tempted. Again. Gods, he hates being tempted.

When Akira comes back from outside, he’s already calmed himself. He smiles politely — maybe a little too polite for how close they are at this point — and retells Akira what he has read. Akira seems happy. Goro feels something screech and claw at this heart, or something that substitutes it, in any case.

*

At the twentieth of December Akira finds him wrapped in warm clothes and sitting at the porch with a grimace on his face. He is petting Donnie absent mindedly while Annie walks forward to greet her owner. Akira frowns.

“Is everything alright?”

Goro moves his wings under layers of clothes and slowly creaks with his throat. He supposes a few months ago this would sound like sad laughter, but these days he is even unreadable to himself. Black feathered, black eyed. With his voice distorted because of his transformation. He doesn’t look like a beast anymore, just a regular crow folk, one of the rarest, the most animalistic kinds. If only it was true, if only it wasn’t a curse. He would even consider himself handsome then.

Finally, he shakes his head.

Akira brushes his hand along Annie’s head and quickly comes closer, sitting on the stairs near Goro.

“Tell me.”

Goro looks away. “I need to leave for a bit.”

Akira frowns even more, but nods, asking him to continue.

“Well, I can’t afford meeting him. Masayoshi Shido. He probably wouldn’t be happy to see me too. That’s just how it goes.”

“Why?”

Why, he asks, and Goro winces. Why. He wishes he knew exactly why, but his feelings are vague. It’s almost like fate is giving him one last chance, nudging him into the right direction, but he isn’t here to listen to it. His decision is steel. Stone. A wall that’s not about to break. He makes another creaking sound.

He should tell Akira, though. Probably better now, while his mouth is still human and not a crow beak that’s barely working for human speech. These days the changes are rapid, they itch unbearably and are sometimes even painful. He wouldn’t be surprised to wake up as a bird one morning.

“Well,” he says again, taking a deep breath, “he’s my father after all.”

Akira stares at him.

“You never mentioned that before.”

“Yeah, I never did.”

“He never said he had a son either.”

“No shit, I doubt he remembers I exist half the time.” Cawing laugher escapes Goro’s lips.

Akira stares at him even more.

“I…”

“Just, just don’t apologize, alright? It’s all bullshit, I know it is. And that’s even not the whole truth, so. Don’t apologize for me lying to you, alright?”

Akira closes his mouth and stays quiet.

“I’ll just take a break until he leaves. A week or so. It’ll be fine. And, and I’ll tell you more then, Akira. Later. Alright?”

He stands up without waiting for an answer, hoping Akira will come to him once Shido is gone. He briefly wonders if he ruined the upcoming Christmas mood but drops this thought, because whether he did or not, he can’t change it now. As he walks away, Akira sighs behind him and mumbles a shy “see you then”.

Somehow it warms Goro up.

*

A few days fly by painfully but quietly. Goro barely undresses in his cold rented house and often goes for walks to get the blood moving. His body screeches from movements but he pretends he can’t hear it or that it’s snow breaking down under his steps.

These lands turn out to be way snowier than the ones he was born in.

While walking around he chases memories. He thinks how almost a year ago, everything around him was dirty and slippery because of the sudden warming. Everyone was coughing and swearing at the bad weather, unsuitable for New Year’s Eve. He was standing under the cold rain, drops were freezing in the air, and he was staring at his dad’s back slowly disappearing into the icy fog.

He didn’t want a lot. Not family, not money, just simple acknowledgement. Maybe a “sorry” for bringing Goro into the world he didn’t really want to be in. Maybe an explanation to why he never got wizarding powers like his goddamn parents did. Maybe just one meaningful glance. He didn’t know, but he didn’t want much. Yet he wasn’t given even that. Shido just left without looking back. Or… well, he wouldn’t look back if Goro didn’t do something. And so he did.

He didn’t love his mother very much, especially since she never cared much about him and left him alone in this world in an early age. Yet there was something he learnt from her. Rage and hatred towards the man who ruined hers and, consequently, Goro’s life. Secret words to whisper at the time when the year dies and gets born anew. Words of faith more than magic.

He whispered them, a prayer to the higher forces, right into his father’s back, and as it was the first of January, the forces answered him. You will be cursed for daring to speak up, they said. You will lose your mind if you don’t fulfill your promise, they said. Your body will turn black and sharp, big and sluggish, it will hurt and torment you. You have one year to kill the man you hate the most. Do you promise?

 _I promise,_ he said then, _I promise, I promise, I promise._

And he felt a sharp crow feather touch his cheek even though around him there were no birds, and he felt strength fill him for a moment, and he felt claws clench his throat. Few meters away Shido was staring at him, but, as soon as their eyes met, he squinted and turned away and left, leaving Goro to chase him through time and space.

In February Goro’s first few feathers showed up from under his itching skin.

*

There’s a huge snowfall at the twenty seventh. Goro comes out to see it against his better judgement. A huge chunk of snow immediately gets stuck behind his neck, sending shivers down his spine and making him shrug a lot, trying to get rid of it. All until he hears a crystal-clear laughter in the distance. Akira.

He can’t help but smile widely. It’s weird but he still has human mouth despite all the changes happening to his throat and voice and body in general.

Akira quickly runs down the hill to him and engulfs him into a hug. He feels awfully, magically warm.

“What are you doing here? It’s snowing like hell!”

Goro doesn’t answer that because he feels there’s no need to answer. Making small steps through big snowdrifts, they move into Goro’s house. Akira rummages through the cupboards and soon he’s already making them the sweetest herbal tea, their favorite.

Goro doesn’t stop smiling even though sadness cracks through his mood once in a while. As they drink the tea quietly, sometimes winking at each other, he doesn’t forget his fate and his curse for a second, but he feels at peace. He feels calm.

Then they run out of tea and they still don’t say anything, and Goro stands up and stretches and drops himself onto bed. Akira curiously walks to him, curiously pokes his feathery side, curiously falls near… Goro feels something warm filling him up and it’s not tea, it’s an emotion. A bright and strong emotion. Like a light radiating from Akira and warming them both, even though that sounds terribly sappy.

Akira rolls over to his side and takes Goro’s feathery wrist into his fingers. The way it feels is vastly different from how Goro remembers feeling touches from before, and yet he still can tell — he’s never felt such a soft touch before. Akira carefully brings his hand all the way up to his own lips and… kisses it?

Goro stops breathing for a second.

Akira’s lips are dry from the frost but warm from the cups they both have been holding just a few minutes ago. He traces Goro’s wrist with short soft kisses and looks him in the eyes, and Goro feels so, so lost, and so, so found. As if what’s happening is very right.

Air comes back to Goro’s lungs and with a creaking laugh he drags Akira closer to himself and makes him drop his hand. They don’t break eye contact. It all feels like a small mischief, but also as something big, meaningful. Their lips touch, and their foreheads too.

It happens almost too fast, one second their lips are pressing together and the other they away, apart, as if too far from each other. Then Akira reaches for another one, and Goro follows through and through. The kisses feel so right, so warm, and the silence feels like the only way of communication they need. They are both blushing, except it’s not visible under Goro’s feathers, but he can feel it, the blood rushing to his face. Oh, he’s so weak for Akira, he realizes.

They spend another eternity just lying together before Akira rolls slightly away and breathes out a bit too loud, as if trying to start a conversation. Goro caws back with a cutesy intonation, slowly being pressed to the bed by a dawning realization.

Number twenty-seven burns his mind, pulsating and scarring his heart. He extends a hand and puts a finger on Akira’s mouth, asking him to stay quiet. He doesn’t want to scare the illusion of safety and comfort off, but it turns out too late.

Around an hour later they stand up and Akira prepares a second teapot. Goro is trembling under his favorite plaid.

“So, then, Shido is gone?” he asks carefully. “Far?”

Akira nods, not too bothered yet, but Goro sees the muscles of his back tense under clothes and his shoulders rise a bit, as if he wants to avoid the question. So it is still uncomfortable for both of them, huh. And yet Goro can’t afford to escape this dialogue. It has to happen. Most importantly, because he trusts Akira.

He opens his mouth and doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t know how to say this.

Akira finishes preparing their tea and pours it into the cups again. Goro takes his and holds onto it like he’s drowning. Akira looks at him with expectations, but Goro knows he doesn’t expect what he’s about to say.

“I made a promise to the higher forces.”

Akira frowns.

“Almost twelve months ago. I told them I would kill my father by the end of the year. If you don’t succeed, they said, at the anniversary of your promise you shall turn into a crow and lose your human mind forever.”

As he speaks Akira’s frown transforms into a painful grimace, and after a few moments of silence he doesn’t hold back anymore and lets the tears flow. His face seems very red. Goro reads anger in him. Goro reads suffering. He takes a sip of the sweet herbal tea and hugs one of his knees and listens to the calming rustling of his black feathers. He feels pain, too, and it’s piercing him so badly that he wants to become a bird and never think again. Just a few days left, he tells himself.

“We should… we should go after him. It’s far but not that far. We can still catch up before New Year, and…”

Stunned, Goro places his cup on the table and catches Akira’s sleeve as the wizard races around the kitchen with magical flames whirling around him. He feels like crying, too. He feels pain, too.

“Akira…”

But Akira can’t hear him, he keeps mumbling something under his nose, making plans and trajectories…

“Akira, do you want to kill him? Your friend?”

He stops. Flames die down around him for a moment, only to change their pace and burn anew.

“No.” He chews his lip. “No, but I… I don’t know what else to do. I’d rather kill him with my own hands than… I…”

“You would kill a friend because of me?”

“Of course, I would, after all, I…” he stumbles. Goro sees it in his eyes. Three words that are drawing a new scar deep under his skin. Akira’s lips are moving, but words are not forming. “Because I… you…”

He doesn’t say it after all. They both know it’s better that way.

*

Surprisingly, the beak doesn’t hurt as much. It grows unnaturally fast, together with his whole body changing rapidly into a bird, and the only thing that stays intact is his mind — only for a short while. By the end of the thirty first he is already fully a crow. There’s nothing human left in him. He doesn’t really know how to operate his new speech system, so as soon as he loses his voice he just quietly stays near Akira, sometimes nudging at him or rubbing his head at his shoulder, like Annie, Donnie, and other sheep sometimes do. He knows it hurts for Akira too, but he can’t refuse himself. Losing his human mind is a lot like dying. He’s living his very last moments and he wants to be near.

One thing he regrets the most is not saying he doesn’t regret anything else. His decision to let Shido live. His decision to rent a shitty house on the outskirts. His decision to ignore all the last warnings from fate and stay beside Akira and his sheep. Their kisses. Small, shy, innocent kisses that happened just one last time before it was too late to try and build something between them, he doesn’t regret any of it.

Just before midnight Akira puts up a beautiful magical fire in his house and lets Goro put his huge crow head on his laps and pets his head as the fire creaks and whines, counting down time till New Year.

When the flames burn brighter for the last time and then go out, Goro closes his eyes and falls asleep.

*

Later in May Masayoshi Shido visits his young friend Akira again, and among his sheep he sees a curious black-feathered crow. 


End file.
